Season 2 Episode 6

The sixth episode of Season 2 Hell’s Kitchen aired on Fox, on July 17, 2006. On that episode, both teams created their menus, and that service resulted in one team performing strong, while the other struggled on their own menu.

Please watch the full episode before you read (below) to avoid spoilers about this episode.

Intro

Following Rachel’s elimination, Heather was already crying and missing her. She talked to Maribel about it, and said she did not think this would happen, but Maribel understood it as she wanted her to be eliminated. Maribel did not care about it, saying Heather could say whatever she wants. On the patio, Keith and Garrett talked about how Heather is not as strong as she thinks.

Team challenge

The next morning, Sous Chef Scott and Mary-Ann woke up the contestants with megaphones, shouting all over the dorms, and telling them to get outside immediately with their jackets on. The contestants were taken to the Grand Central Public Market in Los Angeles, where Ramsay explained the Three Course Meal Challenge, and that inspiration was the main reason of that challenge. Each team was given 20 minutes to shop for their ingredients of their three dishes. On the red team, Virginia took the leadership role, much to the annoyance of Maribel and Sara, as they felt she does not have what it takes. On the blue team, Heather struggled to find what she wants, and Keith noticed she was getting flustered.

When the teams came back in Hell’s Kitchen, they had one hour to prepare all three dishes. Virginia was the unofficial leader for her team as she chose the dishes, but said she would like everybody to lead their own station, with the help of others. Maribel did not feel her two teammates had confidence in her. In the blue kitchen, they were organized by each choosing a station, but Keith said he did not want to put too much responsibility on Garrett as he was lacking the knowledge of the kitchen the most in the team.

Garrett and Sara went up for the appetizer round. Garrett presented a roasted corn scallop and shrimp bisque. Although Ramsay found the presentation nice, he found the shrimp tail very dangerous to leave on the plate as it was really sharp. Sara made a bell pepper soup, and despite Ramsay praising the appetizing colour, the peppers were burned. Virginia took responsibility for that mistake as she told Sara to roast the peppers to fuck. For the entrées, Virginia served a chicken roulade stuffed with Mexican hard salami, sliced tomatoes and garlic. It impressed Ramsay as Hell’s Kitchen was not that sophisticated yet with their chicken dish. For the blue team, Keith served a pan-roasted rib-eye with smocked chili. Ramsay said the steak was cooked perfectly, and even the vegetables presented as a mess were delicious. For the desserts, Heather presented a fresh-fruit crepe with mango purée, but Ramsay did not like it as it was soggy. Maribel served a strawberry short cake, and received praise from Ramsay for the taste, but he said it could be more inspirational. After much deliberation, Ramsay declared the red team winners. He also added his favorite dish overall was Virginia’s chicken roulade. That announcement infuriated the blue team as they felt they should have won.

Reward

The red team enjoyed a day of sunbathing on the patio, before a night out with Ramsay at three different restaurants in Hollywood. The first restaurant they went was Providence, before going to Nick & Stef’s Steakhouse. Arrived there, Virginia annoyed her teammates for not being able to properly ask a question to the owner of the restaurant. The last restaurant they went to is unknown.

Punishment

The blue team was punished by taking part of Delivery Day. During the punishment, they were furious as they felt they should have won, being sore losers, and trash talked the red team. They also made an agreement to work hard, eliminate all the girls of the red team, and be the final three. When the red team took off for their night in the limousine, Garrett flipped the birds to them, unaware Ramsay was inside it. Heather did not think it was a good idea. During the night, they were going to bed, telling each other good night, and five minutes later, another delivery came in.

Creating new menus

The next morning, Ramsay reminded Garrett about the “bird-flipping” incident, and threatened him with on-the-spot elimination. After that, Ramsay announced that for the next service, he was going to let both teams have control of the menu. He told them to go back to the dorms and get to work. For the blue team, Keith and Heather quickly came up with suggestions for their menu, but Garrett’s ideas were turned down due to them being too complicated, much to his frustration. On the red team, it was the same story as Garrett for Maribel, with Virginia and Sara taking total control.

Before service

With three hours left until service began, both teams prepped their kitchens. Maribel was moving slowly due to not contributing to the menu, while on the blue team, Garrett was still mad on his lack of input and wonders why he was even there.

Before service, Ramsay reminds the two teams that while it was their menus, it was still his standards.

Dinner service

In the blue kitchen, Keith got the team off to a strong start with perfect risottos and Ramsay praised his work. In the red kitchen, Virginia sent raw scallops, slowing the red kitchen down, and got lost on orders, forcing Ramsay to send the blue teams appetizers to a few tables that have two different team orders. More problems occurred for Virginia when her sashimi was sliced in different sizes, and Maribel was sent over to try and help her. It worked, but they were way behind as it had been an hour since service started.

In the blue kitchen, all the appetizers went out, and Garrett and Heather began working on entrées. However, Ramsay noticed that Garrett’s duck salad was raw, and told Keith he needed to get his team under control. Before they could do anything more, a truck horn was heard, and the three of them were forced to do one more task on their punishment. All three of them raced outside and took in orders of wine, giving the red team a chance to catch up on appetizers.

Moving onto entrées, Sara sent in her lamb entrées but it turned out to be raw, and Ramsay was even angrier when Sara claimed she was learning. In the blue kitchen, Garrett sent up another duck salad, but it was raw again, forcing Ramsay to show him how to properly cook it. Garrett caused a small fire, causing a disbelieved Ramsay to say “Welcome to Hell’s Shithole”. Despite these problems, entrées from the blue kitchen came out, while the red team has not sent any entrées out yet, and red diners were getting impatient. That angered Ramsay who threatened to kick out Sara unless they would get moving. Her next lamb dish was raw again, forcing Ramsay to tell Jean-Philippe to take the lamb off the menu, and angrily ordered Sara not to touch another lamb for the rest of the night. Jean-Philippe himself has reached his limit and went off for a drink.

In the meantime, the blue team has almost finished service, and Heather took over the meat station, and served a respectable order of steak. In the red kitchen, more problems arrived as a lukewarm salmon returned to the pass because of Maribel, with Ramsay saying he could not believe the first thing Maribel touched all night went poorly. On their side, the blue team has performed a Hell’s Kitchen first and served desserts along with entrées, finishing their first complete service. On the other side, the red team continued to struggle, and Ramsay noticed that their salmon dish was very impracticable, much like their other items, and suggested they slice it for grilling. But when Sara argued about consistency, Ramsay finally had enough, and schooled her on her attitude, before calling the blue team over, and informing them that there are 11 red tables that have not received entrées yet. Ramsay ordered the blue team to help the red team, and left the kitchen, having seen enough for the night. With the blue team’s help, the red team succeeded to serve all their entrées.

Post-Mortem

After service, a returning Ramsay praised the blue team for completing the service. He told Keith that this was his best performance, while telling Garrett that he was lucky to be on the same team as Heather and Keith, which Garrett agreed. For the red team, Ramsay called Sara’s performance her worst so far, and that the red team were the obvious losers for creating a menu that was too difficult for any of them to handle. Nobody was safe, and each of them were asked to nominate one teammate for elimination.

The three discussed their performances, and Sara and Virginia argued over their performance, while Maribel deflected her poor performance since she never had a hand in the menu creation.

Elimination

At elimination, Ramsay decided to not go with the team’s nominees, and instead nominated the entire team for elimination. After deliberation, Ramsay eliminated Maribel for her lack of leadership and not doing much during service, but praised her for her attitude and hard work. During her exit interview, Maribel admitted that trying to work as a team was her weakness, and that her husband and daughter would be proud of her for being herself throughout the competition.

Ramsay’s comment : “I’m trying to find someone that deserves a restaurant. Now to run that restaurant properly, you need a leader and Maribel clearly can’t lead a section, let alone a kitchen.”

My opinion

The red team was a mess tonight because no one in the red team can cooked. I think Garrett didn’t know that Ramsay was in the car when he flipped them off. Garrett was lucky he was in the blue team.

My comment: Maribel wanted to see her family more than begin here. So I sent her home.

Gordon choose Maribel.